Russia’s sovereign independence sticks in Washington’s craw, longterm US policy determined to replace it with governance it controls - even at the risk of WW III.

Putin’s most responsible policies are bashed, notably his forthright efforts to end conflicts in Ukraine and Syria diplomatically - now his real war on terrorism, polar opposite Washington’s phony one, a pretext for ravaging one country after another.

Irresponsible propaganda war against him rages. Deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner lied saying the Obama administration “welcome(s) a constructive role for Russia if it takes the fight to ISIS” - precisely what it’s doing as Toner knows.

Instead of acknowledging and praising its effort, he lied saying “we’ve not seen that that’s the case. We’ve seen no indication that they’re actually hitting ISIL targets.”

He persists in the Big Lie about Moscow targeting nonexistent anti-Assad moderates. Sergey Lavrov explained clearly what Russia has been doing for the past week, saying if it walks and talks and squawks like a terrorist, it’s a terrorist vital to eliminate - to keep its danger from spreading.

Bernie Sanders is militantly anti-Russian. “The entire world has got to stand up to Putin,” he blustered. Would he risk direct confrontation, possible nuclear war?

In a Financial Times op-ed, former Carter administration national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski irresponsibly said Russia “launched air attacks at Syrian elements that are sponsored, trained and equipped by the Americans, inflicting damage and causing casualties.”

“At best, it was a display of Russian military incompetence; at worst, evidence of a dangerous desire to highlight American political impotence.”

Washington has “only one real option,” he claimed, to protect its regional interests - “to convey to Moscow the demand that it cease and desist from military actions that directly affect American assets.”

He stopped short of explaining they’re ISIS and other imported terrorists, not moderate Syrian opponents, one of many Big Lies about Obama’s war, systematically destroying another country. Putin wants Syria saved. He wants the scourge of terrorism eliminated.